Made on Main: Craft Confessions | WITCH'S LAIR (So excited for Halloween!)

I'm so excited for Halloween this year. The weather in Kansas City has been nice and chilly and crisp lately; I love it! In our new home, we have a little entry room before guests walk upstairs onto the main level of our home (check out some pictures below and you'll understand). We have a beautiful roll-top desk inhabiting this space because it is way too heavy to haul up our stairs, and because it makes a good drop-off place for our mail, umbrellas, motorcycle helmet, etc. I had tons of fun decorating the table by our front door last year (check it our here), and I couldn't resist the urge to do something similar but so much bigger with our entry desk this year!

Let me break this down for you. I have to give kudos out to all the great designers out on the interweb who did most of the heavy lifting for me. I just put their great ideas and creations together!

We have a small, skinny window that is usually covered by wooden shutters. I opened up the shutters and placed some trace paper over the window (so a soft, spooky glow will come out at night). Then I cut out a rat silhouette and glued it onto the paper. That ought to look good at night :). In the right picture, I have a lovely bouquet of dead leaves (stacked on some degloved Harry Potter goodness) and a jar of "bat skulls" (courtesy of Love Manor's amazing flickr page).

On the other side of the desk top, I've got a collection of ingredients for good witchy remedies. First we have a jar of berries and leaves, a bottle of snakes (label from Love Manor and rubber snake from The Dollar Store), and a little sign that says "Kick off your shoes and head on up". Granted, the sign isn't witchy at all, but the fonts and graphics match the lair's theme, so I left it up. Behind the sign is a large candlestick (from my wedding centerpieces) and a dollar store candle that I made drippy with melted wax.

Across the mirror I draped a creepy looking cloth (also from the dollar store) and clipped a few witchy recipes on top (also printed from Love Manor). In the center of the desk top, I stuffed and labeled a brown paper bag (with an awesome free label from The Graphics Fairy- isn't she awesome?) and a candle I purposely melted on freezer paper.

On the writing level of the desk, I placed a few books covered with very spooky titles including "A Pocket Guide to Transfiguration". In the middle is an old college textbook of mine with a fake chapter on Cyanide (all text copied from Wikipedia) placed in the spine. These book covers and fake pages are created from scratch, but I've included them at the bottom of the post in case you'd like to use them!

On either side of the desk are awesome cubbies that I filled with more "utilitarian" items. The left side has paper bags, clothespins, mixing sticks, and a can of dead man's toes (with another label from Love Manor). On the right side are small glass jars filled with graveyard dust (dirt from the yard), witch hazel (a random plant from the yard), and blood (tomato juice).

I wanted the other corner of this tiny room to get some love, too. So I wrapped our monogram in a bit of spider web. (The picture on the left might help you understand the set-up of our house a little more.)